There was another Canadian show, The Beachcombers, about a guy named Nick Adonidas, who ran a lumber salvage operation on the coast of British Columbia.

The series was insanely gritty for its day, and dealt frequently with Nick's alcoholism problem, which was treated as being - in our terms - horrormirthy. Nick had a particular weakness with ouzo, and often was shown puking drunk, hung over, or in dire financial straits due to this.

The foil was a guy named "Relic", who used unscrupulous means to swipe lumber off of Nick, who wasn't above some shady dealings himself. Many of the characters were North American Natives, and their issues in dealing with Whites were explored fairly often, though they were also portrayed as "noble", in that they were virtually flaw-free (for example, they were the only characters that weren't horrid drunks).

Funny thing: In the 80s, the show was revamped, using more suspense and action, and tanked. The audience wanted sordid and awful social problems rubbed in their faces, which only proves that Canada is still very British.

Wow, haven't thought about that show in a loooong ass time. Relic. Just wow.

I realize it may be too late now to back to the OP, but I wanted to add something.

I think the truth is inbetween the idea that Americans have a severely abbreviated culture and Hyphenated-Americans are Really Really Hyphenated People.

America was colonised in waves, and those waves often consisted of people from distinct linguistic and cultural groups, usually settling in similar areas to each other. The parents bring the culture with them, from their homelands, but the children born there...well, they exist in a different geographical, legal, political and economic climate to the one their parents did, alongside other emerging or distinct foreign cultures as well.

Thus you have a case of divergent cultural evolution. Much like the way Canadian French is different from Modern French, but related historically and linguistically, you have an Irish Tradition with an offshoot - the American-Irish tradition, and the Irish one. Conditioned by outside factors and the course of history, there is inevitably going to be a major difference in how those traditions are percieved and what kind of behaviour they result in.

The only reason Irish Irishness is considered more legitimate than American Irishness is because the former controls the state of Ireland, and thus the percieved homeland of Irish Tradition by both sides.

Thanks Cain. Your five concise paragraphs spared me an hour of typing, getting logged out and losing an hour's worth of typing.Nicely put.

Think of a question, flip through the pages of text without looking. Stop suddenly. Open pages and then stick your finger on a page. Read the text where your finger lands. This is most definitely the voice of God giving the correct answer to your question.

1) Remove a page. Fold it in half length wise.2) Remove another page & do the same.3) Take folded pages 1 & 2 and find interesting ways to line up the text.4) Copy the most interesting word combos and sentences.

A good friend of mine went to Manchester in the early 90s and stayed for 10+ years. In fact, I think he would of stayed there but personal and economic circumstances forced him to move.

I don't know what it's like there now, but he assured me that while there were certainly problems, a lot of the tabloid headlines were overstated (aren't they always?). It's a major city, so you get all the pros and cons of that. (And there are significantly worse cities you could live in eg: Detroit)

Anyway, he was a skinny, long haired, alternative looking, architecture student type and he survived there without any problems. That's not to say people didn't drive past in cars and yell "ORANGE TWAT" at him because of a coat that he used to wear but, I don't think he was ever in any real physical danger that I know of.

One of his big regrets in leaving Manchester was missing out on the Indian food.